Certain test procedures for vehicle safety, and for example the Small Overlap crash load situation of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), lead to very high loads in the region of the lower A pillar and of the sill. Owing to the small overlap of only 25%, the rigid, bollard-like barrier that is used here in some cases does not strike the front longitudinal member. In this way, it is scarcely possible for energy in the vehicle front end to be dissipated. It is rather the case that, in certain situations, the barrier pushes the front wheel with brake disk against the A pillar.
In the prior art, to safeguard the survival area for the passengers while allowing for the abovementioned crash load situation, substantially two basic approaches are known.
Firstly, it is possible for solid reinforcement measures to be implemented on the sill and on the A pillar and on the bulkhead. For this purpose, use is normally made of ultra-high-strength, hot-worked steel. This however gives rise to a considerable additional weight and high additional costs.
In a second approach, the lower A pillar and/or the front end of the sill are designed to be deformable in regions. In this way, energy dissipation is possible there. Certain other regions of the A pillar and/or of the sill are, by contrast, of ultra-high-strength and/or dimensionally stable design. This is intended to make it possible to reliably safeguard the survival space for the occupants. A disadvantage of this approach is however that a targeted combination of ultra-high-strength, hot-worked steel, on the one hand, and soft, ductile steel, on the other hand, must be used for this purpose. Therefore, in the case of this approach, the use of lightweight materials and, for example, aluminum, is ruled out. This is however particularly unfavorable in the case of weight-optimized vehicles and for example sports cars, in the case of which the pillars and sills are manufactured from aluminum materials. In the case of such vehicles, it is therefore necessary, in order to satisfy the desired safety requirements, in particular in the context of the crash load situation mentioned above, for the affected components to be converted from aluminum to steel. This gives rise to considerable additional weight. Furthermore, this entails very great outlay in terms of construction and economic expenditure.